Backwards
by BluishBleach
Summary: Alex never expected to be back at Brecon Beacons, but lo and behold, that was exactly where he was- sitting among soldiers and enduring a dead-boring 'teamwork building session', one eye constantly on his companions. Because one of the soldiers was possibly hiding a dark secret... One that he must do anything to expose. (Even though, you know, he really really doesn't want to.)


"I'm going to do _what?_"

Alex Rider stared at the two heads of MI6, an incredulous, baffled look on his face.

"Return to Brecon Beacons for a refresher course," Mrs. Jones repeated slowly, lacing her fingers together carefully. "It is, after all, a yearly requirement for all SAS units."

"Yeah but I'm not _in _the SAS!" Alex cried. "I just trained with them two _years_ ago for a little while! A-A week!"

"11 days," Mr. Davis, the new deputy, corrected seriously. He was a small, unremarkable man, with watery brown eyes, papery skin, and long, slender fingers.

After Blunt had 'retired', Mrs. Jones had risen to take his place, and Davis had risen to take hers. He was a year seasoned, and still realizing that there were things that he was unprepared for in his new position.

Like Alex Rider, for one.

"Oh, _11 _days," Alex snapped. "Bloody _brilliant_. Am I ready for a _promotion _yet?" His voice dripped with oozing sarcasm.

"Alex, please." Mrs. Jones interrupted, before Mr. Davis could open his mouth and say something no doubt incredibly inflammatory.

Alex was already covered in gasoline. He did _not _need a spark.

"Surely it's not _that _big of a thing to ask? It will only be for a month-"

"A _month_?!" The teenager burst out, jumping to his feet. "From a week, to 11 days, to a _month? _What is this, an _Advent calendar?"_

He glared at the two government workers, clear, outraged disbelief on his face.

Mrs. Jones swallowed a sigh. She had known that this would not be easy…

"Alex, don't be difficult. You know that this is the better option-"

"I hate to say it," Alex broke in angrily for the second time, "But all of your 'options'," He sneered at the word, "suck. _Hardcore _suck."

"It is either the refresher course or a mission with them," Mrs. Jones said sharply, her laced fingers tightening imperceptibly. "I will leave the decision up to you."

Alex's lips drew back in a snarl. "Damn it, Jones, why the hell are you _doing _this? As I have_ said_, I'm not _in _the SAS!"

He was breathing hard, and he knew that he was quickly losing his temper. But he could not help it, no matter how much he struggled to regain his normally carefully reigned control.

His choices had been laid out for him once more, and, as usual, he did not like any of them.

He could either attend the SAS refresher course, enduring agonizingly arduous training, demeaning and torturous bullying, and psychological remission, **OR **he could go on a dangerous, life-threatening mission in which he could easily be maimed/killed, and would no doubt be bullied by the soldiers as well. Oh yeah, and psychological remission.

So. Lose lose.

He didn't like losing.

Alex moved abruptly, making Mrs. Jones drew in a sharp breath. But Alex only rolled his eyes, stalked to the cracked door, and slammed it forcefully shut.

"Okay," he demanded, turning to glare at both of the adults. "I know manipulation when I smell it. Tell me what's _really _going on. _Now__._"

"Now Mr. Rider-" Davis began disapprovingly, beginning to rise from his chair.

"No George," Mrs. Jones shook her head in defeat. "Don't."

Davis blinked at her. And then, without a word, he slowly lowered himself back into his seat.

Alex felt a flash of satisfaction, though he hid is carefully behind a mask of indifference as he leaned nonchalantly against the doorframe, arms crossed. "Well?"

With a small groan, Mrs. Jones finally unlaced her fingers; a hand reached up to gently massage her forehead.

There was silence for a moment. Davis watched Alex, Alex watched Mrs. Jones, and Mrs. Jones didn't say a word.

On the wall, the clock ticked.

"We have a mole." The Head said finally, raising her head to meet Alex's eyes directly.

Alex stared. "Okay?" He said eventually. "I'm… listening?"

"Alex, you don't understand the severity of this specific issue." Mrs. Jones said. "This mole is… different." She stood up and paced to the window, pausing to stare out a moment into the clear, blue, Saturday morning air. Then she turned back to her two companions, expression dark.

"We do not know his name, age, or orientation. His background, personal life, or even his face. What we _do _know is that he somehow has gained access to _every single one _of our level three files."

Alex froze. "W-_What? _Level three? _All _of them?" He floundered for a moment, uncrossing his arms and shuffling around in his pockets haphazardly. "How?"

"We don't know for certain, though we believe that he used a combination of superior hacking skills and a prior knowledge of our coding. We discovered this massive breach three weeks ago; he had hidden his tracks well. We do not know how long he had been in our system, but we ejected him as soon as we could."

She sighed, sounding tired, and turned back to the window. "It was, by then, just a little too late."

"How do you know that it's a man?" Alex asked, the thought suddenly occurring to him. "Couldn't the hacker be a female?"

He was still in utter shock that something like this could even happen. Level three… His files were level _two_. If the hacker had been just a little bit better, just a little bit more skilled, he could have gained access to every single one of his mission reports… Alex's details would no longer have been top secret. The basic information was out and about, sure, spread in hissed whispers through all sorts of criminal circles, but not many knew the full stories.

Alex sure as hell wanted to keep it that way.

"We were able to track the signal," said Mr. Davis, speaking up finally and taking over for Mrs. Jones. "It was coming from a military recuperation facility in lower Suffolk." Mr. Davis blinked his watery eyes. "Four SAS units were being treated there, recovering from trauma, stress, and minor injuries."

"Wait…" Alex gaped. "So you think… Hold on just one _minute_ here! That makes _absolutely _no sense! You can't possibly expect- I mean… That's _ridiculous_, Jones!"

"There are four members to one unit," Mr. Davis continued solemnly, as if he had not heard Alex's outburst. "That means that there are 16 men that you have to be on the lookout for."

"Davis, stop!" Alex said, extremely frustrated. "Stop and _explain _this to me! Just how exactly can you jump to such preposterously unfounded conclusions? The signal came from this facility. So? So _what_? That doesn't automatically mean that it's one of the SAS members! It could have been one of the staff, or hell, even the _janitor_!" He looked between the two MI6 leaders. "I really don't see a battered, psychologically damaged man sneaking out of his hospital room in the middle of the night, _somehow _finding a computer well equipped enough to _hack _into _MI6's database_, and doing so before anyone notices him missing. That's just… No. Just no."

He shook his head in disbelief, and repeated forcefully- "_No."_

"Those were precisely our thoughts as well," Mrs. Jones began slowly, carefully after a long, awkward pause (at least on Jones and Davis's side it was). "And we most certainly took many intense, thorough precautions against letting our perpetrator get away. Over the last three weeks, we have been rigorously investigating and shadowing each and every man and woman that was working at the facility at the time of the breach. So far, every one of them has checked out." Her brows creased into a frown. "Not a single one of them have any holes in their files- or at least, none that we have detected- though we will not let any of them pass through our net until we are _absolutely sure _that they had nothing to do with this fiasco."

"During the past three weeks we have also been running checks on the members of the SAS units that were recovering at the facility." Mr. Davis stroked his dry chin. "We had more luck there."

"Although none of them had official criminal records, due to SAS requirements, six of them had reported developmental issues as children, ranging from _severe_ anger management issues, to violent paranoid tendencies, to abusive guardians." Mrs. Jones cast a shadowed look over to Alex. "We feel as if they might be worth checking out."

"So you're not even _sure_ about this?" Alex asked incredulously. "You're just going to send me to that hell hole because a few members had troubled time as children?"

"Alex, we're not sure of _anything _yet, do you understand?" Mrs. Jones snapped. "But we can't afford to lose any more time! If the hacker is not among the SAS, then fine. That's probably a good thing. But we _must _make sure that we get this man, and the only way to do that is if we cover all of our bases!"

Alex, as much as he hated to admit it, _did _understand. He absolutely got why Mrs. Jones wanted to send him, and even grudgingly admire her to-do attitude. It was just…

He _really _didn't want to go. Like, _really_.

"Can't you send Ben Daniels? Fox? I'm sure that he would do a _much _better job at this than I would."

"Benjamin Daniels left the SAS under the guise of having been binned," Mrs. Jones said, watching as a pigeon flittered down to the street below. "And in any case, he does not have the clearance level, so it hardly matters." She paused, expecting some form of protest, but was pleasantly surprised by the silence that met her ears. She continued. "What we want you to do is go in and keep your eyes open, setting off a couple of bells while you're at it."

Here, the teenager raised a confused eyebrow, and couldn't help but ask, "You want me to _what_?"

"We want you to… Well, _show off_, for lack of a better term." Mrs. Jones shifted. "Our hacker will no doubt be intrigued by you: a teenager at an SAS training camp? Who would have thought… At this point in time, we _want _him to attempt to get into our system once more. We _want _him to try to steal our information. Because if and when he does, _we will be ready for him_."

She said it with such conviction that Alex couldn't help but let some of his doubt slip away.

"Of course, it would be better if you were to find him out before he even attempted anything," Mr. Davis put in from the side, "but we're not going to be too picky here…"

Alex ignored him. "But how- I mean- How exactly can I 'show off'? I'm _sixteen _years old, Jones. They are _all _stronger than me, they _all _know what they're supposed to be doing, and they are all _not _going to let themselves be impressed by some _kid_." He crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

"You are highly underestimating yourself, Alex." Mrs. Jones said with a small frown. "But nonetheless, you need not worry. As these units are still recovering from their injuries, they will all be attending mostly a set of specialized lectures, of a sort. They will also participate in sets of teamwork building activities, all of which will be lacking strenuous work, of course."

"I see… And you _don't _want me to hide my knowledge?"

"That is correct. Or at least, partially. Do as well as you think you need to, Alex, to draw our man out."

There was a long pause, as Alex thought over all of the information that he had just gained.

"You wouldn't _really _make me go on a mission with the SAS if I didn't agree, would you?" He finally asked, staring straight at the Head of MI6 with a strange look in his brown eyes.

Mrs. Jones face tightened, and there was quiet once more.

Just as Alex was starting to regret asking the obviously positively answered question, she sighed, and her face relaxed.

"No, Alex," She responded slowly. "I suppose that I would not. You have done enough for us over the past two years, and it would be a shame to resort back to blackmail, after all of this time."

"One word for it," Alex snorted, hiding the great relief he felt at her response.

"Is it safe to assume that you will be going, then?" Mr. Davis asked him, blinking hard.

"You know what they say when you assume," Alex said, barking out a short laugh. "Although yes, I suppose that I will."

He eyed both of his employers sharply. "I just sure as hell hope that I won't be regretting this…"

* * *

**Ooookay! This is new for me! So far I have only posted one-shots and drabbles, so I really do not know how I will do with a longer story. :O Hopefully well!**

**I will try my hardest to update regularly, but my schoolwork will probably make that rather hard... Still, I will totally try! :) **

**I would really appreciate any and all constructive criticism, because I am greatly in need of it, haha! Thanks for reading this far. ;P**


End file.
